


Champagne Lovers

by littleoctopushead



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, F/M, Implied childbirth, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Loreza Martell is the Unnamed Princess of Dorne, Organized Crime, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 00:52:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12097140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleoctopushead/pseuds/littleoctopushead
Summary: Summerhall burns and burns and burns behind her, and Rhaella does not pause to wipe the blood from her thighs nor the involuntary tears that stream down her face and into the sharp grass tickling her bare feet.___The Targaryen Syndicate owns the city and Rhaella too, until she escapes in the chaos of the Summerhall fire, assumed dead and never to be seen again.Elsewhere, Loreza Martell's doorbell won't stop ringing, and there's a girl with platinum hair waiting outside who will change both their lives forever.





	Champagne Lovers

Her father calls it “the old country.” Valyria is a thousand years gone in smoke and ruin, but he still speaks of it as though he himself had fled with the flock. 

“In the old country,” He likes to say, after a glass of wine on a warm evening, “Targaryens lived in palaces and walked amongst our equals.”

“In the old country,” He might mutter, one arm around his wife and carefully out of earshot of his father, “We did as we pleased.”

“In the old country,” He told his daughter once, a splendid storybook spread out between them, “We were _gods.”_

Rhaella Targaryen has watched her parents doubtfully for as long as she can remember, and she knows she is no god. Ruling a city through fear and drugs does not make her kin otherworldly, and of all the Targaryens who control her grandfather’s syndicate, she is easily the last and least of them. Her mother remembers her only when there aren’t any prettier, shinier objects nearby, and her father rarely takes a break from his own self-interests to call her his princess.

Her older brother mostly ignores her, and she is happy to do the same. There are memories somewhere of, if not happy, then tolerable days with Aerys, but it always takes some digging to find them. Playing in the nursery and drawing pictures with crowns and dragons together had once been her whole world...but boys grow older, and Aerys had always outgrown people faster than baubles. One day she’d asked him to play house and he’d turned to her with an expression of such spite she could have wept. “Oh yes little sister, I can be our beloved Father and you can be dearest Mother, would you like that?”

Her recoil had been a sharp, sudden thing. _I will never be like mother._ Rhaella could not remember a time Shaera Targaryen’s demeanor did not match the pallor of her face. Her fingers were long and stacked with rings, her hair a platinum curtain never out of place, her limbs forever bony and awkward-looking in alternating fits of dieting and genuinely poor health. A flighty, stubborn woman with regard only for her husband and occasionally her son, Rhaella’s mother had not a single aspect her daughter ever wished to emulate.

“ _You’re_ like mother.” Rhaella had retorted. A poor rebuttal if there ever was one; Aerys did not so much as flinch. Yet children could sometimes stumble upon the truth, as Rhaella would reflect in the coming years. Flighty Aerys with his sudden tempers and weakness for luxury was his mother’s son... did that make Rhaella her father’s daughter? Dreamy, lost Jaehaerys, clinging always to his great defiance and never defining himself beyond it. Maybe there was truth to this too.

It is easy to feel that she will never escape the Targaryen legacy. As soon as she enters secondary school she is the subject of staring and whispers and rumors and jealousy. Everyone wants a glance at the Targaryen girl. In this private, all-girl world of upper-class comfort there’s not one student in attendance whose family isn’t aware of the Targaryen reach - that’s why Rhaella attends school with them. It is luck indeed when Joanna Lannister and Loreza Martell sweep her under their wing. The older girls are elegance and grace personified, they are the protective cloak that shields her from the other private school girls who would mock and tear and destroy her in her fragility. 

And then the clock ticks forward, and her parents tell her it is time to prove herself a part of their family. Grandfather closes his eyes, Joanna turns away from her in disgust, and the gold thread that weaved the cloak unravels and tears and burns and…

Mother and Father… _Grandfather….!_

_Aerys_

_Aerys_

_Aerys_

There is nowhere to hide from her shame, but does it matter? No one will look her in the eye anymore. Not the girls at school, not Grandfather’s bodyguards who she’d once held in such high regard, not the Baratheons or the Lannisters who come to the manor to treat with the family. She is alone except for…

Well.

The year is almost up, and a gathering is called at Summerhall. Rhaella had almost forgotten about the hidden old property- it was ever Uncle Duncan’s place, and he had distanced himself from his family as far as he could without turning traitor. Every aunt and uncle and distant cousin gathers for this weekend, with Grandfather playing host, and she would give anything not to attend. 

Mother says it is a celebration, and it is true that everyone is quick to come to Rhaella’s side and offer their piece. Aunt Rhaelle, for whom Rhaella is named, seems so sad to look at her, but Uncle Duncan’s pretty wife Jenny (who isn’t _really_ one of them and shouldn’t be attending, though no one says so) smiles prettily and says she is pleased at the “developments”. 

Shiera Seastar, withered and old but never faded, sits in her place and observes with mismatched eyes. 

By now her memories of that weekend are long ripped past restoration. She has enough to know that the pain came later, more pain than a slip of a girl should ever have to know; the kind that felt like the very hands of death tearing her apart and could be tempered only by her mother’s fingernails digging into her wrists and chaining her to the waking world 

And that famous fire? She cannot remember a single flame, but there were heavy plumes of smoke that snaked around her like a binding rope, and once again she was threatened with the great ending. 

Yet despite wishing for it all those months, she knew then and now that fate was not ready to take her just yet.

Her escape is another detail lost to her. Half-blind and choking as it must have been, she wakes half a mile away from the smouldering ruins of Targaryen loyalty. Summerhall burns and burns and burns behind her, and Rhaella does not pause to wipe the blood from her thighs nor the involuntary tears that stream down her face and into the sharp grass tickling her bare feet.

She is free.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! This is my first asoiaf work so any feedback is greatly appreciated! I am without a beta and dying to hear what people think.
> 
> If you are confused about what happened in the middle, basically Aerys and Rhaella were forced into marriage and Rhaella birthed Rhaegar during the Tragedy at Summerhall, as per canon. Because this is a modern au they are not legally married, but everyone within the Targaryen circle would consider them as such. I left it vague because I don't think explicit underage rape and childbirth scenes were necessary to this story, and also for future plot reasons in this fic. I'm also leaving Rhaella's age during that time vague until further notice. If anyone has a problem with how everything is tagged please let me know!


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